


Fearless

by Octinary



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Feelings Realization, M/M, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 07:27:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26968216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Octinary/pseuds/Octinary
Summary: Not in the mood for Jaskier's academic or artistic interest in his craft, Geralt remains hidden when the bard comes looking for him in the dead corn field that was the site of his latest hunt.  Listening to him talk to himself, and smelling his distress, Geralt can tell that something is wrong with the man though.  He just can't figure out what.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 46
Kudos: 281
Collections: The Witcher Flash Fic Challenge #008





	Fearless

“Ah, ah! No! Okay. Okay, it’s just corn.”

Geralt had initially tensed when he’d heard the hint of movement in the corn stalks, but now relaxes and rolls his eyes as the sound of one of the most familiar voices in the world reaches his ears. He’s known Jaskier, on and off, for eight years. He’s known Eskel for eight decades. He’s pretty sure he’s already heard more words from Jaskier than his brother. It shouldn’t really come as a surprise that lacking any victims for his insatiable need to converse, the man was more than willing to talk to himself.

“It’s just corn. Corn is nice. Corn is fine. I like corn. Corn muffins. Corn bread. Roasted corn on the cob. It all has to come from somewhere right? Ergo, corn fields.”

Jaskier is still a few hundred metres away, but meandering in his direction. Uninclined to deal with the colourful commentary on his actions that Jaskier would undoubtedly provide if he gave his position away, Geralt continues to butcher the corpse of the giant centipede in relative silence. He’s about thirty feet off the path and the tall stalks provide ample cover. The nettling bard will likely pass right by without ever knowing he was there. It isn’t like there is anything left in the field that could threaten the human anyway; he’d taken care of that problem yesterday for a nice tidy sum that was currently sitting heavy in his purse. He’d only returned today to collect some components for potions.

“Just corn. The alderman said Geralt got his payment for the giant bugs yesterday, well the alderman said the quiet white haired witcher I’m assuming is Geralt got his payment for the giant bugs yesterday, so it’s just corn. Corn and wind.”

Fuck. The bard knows he’s out here. He’s probably even looking for him - likely to try to needle the details of this hunt out of him so he could proceed to completely ignore them and write some awful overly embellished song. Geralt had really thought Jaskier would have grown bored of him, or finally become too frightened to keep following him, and so moved on to a new fixation by now. He doesn’t know a lot about music, but there must be an easier way to be inspired than this. The sky is grey and overcast though, the wind periodically picking up and rustling the dried corn stalks into a cacophony, so maybe he can wait Jaskier out. He knows the softer man is not fond of inclement weather and Geralt can taste cold rain coming in the air. Not that he particularly wants to be caught out in the rain himself. His plan for the day had been much more pleasant: harvest the necessary monster parts then retreat back to the cosy inn where he’d left Roach and spend the rainy afternoon and evening concocting them into useful potions. But then again, time with Jaskier could be pleasant too. Maybe an evening amiably drinking and playing cards was worth an afternoon peppered with questions. Plus he would never live it down if Lambert found out he’d spent a late autumn thunderstorm miserably wallowing in the mud while he had a pocket full of perfectly serviceable coin just because he was hiding from a bard.

“Just corn and wind. Definitely nothing else. Well, dead corn, cold wind and hopefully a white haired witcher. Hopefully the white haired witcher I want. Are all witchers white haired? I haven’t met any others, but it feels like that is something that would have been mentioned in stories if it were true. But if I’ve learned nothing else with that man I’ve learned how horrendously incorrect some of the rumours surrounding the members of his profession truly are. Geralt?”

Still undecided as to what he wants to do, Geralt doesn’t respond to the call. Maybe he could sneak off - head back to the inn and let the bard mutter himself hoarse out here alone. Then he could have his quiet afternoon and maybe still get to have a drink with him in the evening. Which is being a little hard on the man, he knows, but it is just so frustratingly hard under those intense blue eyes to remember that Jaskier is only asking for story material, not out of actual interest in him. It is easier sometimes to just keep his distance and avoid the questions.

“How big is this damned field anyway? Gods, what if I’m lost? What if I got turned around and I’m going to wander through these desolate rows until I die of starvation?”

Jaskier is closer now, but his limited human senses haven’t picked up the witcher yet. Jaskier’s presence, on the other hand, is as flamboyantly apparent to Geralt’s heightened senses as his outfits usually are to the eyes. Even if he weren’t carrying on a conversation with himself, Geralt could hear his shuffling footsteps and smell his sweet cologne. Most men go for spicier scents, and Jaskier does too sometimes, but today he smells like flowers. Geralt’s brow wrinkles as he takes another deep breath through his nose. Flowers and something else. Some kind of distress?

"Ah! What was that? No, okay. Just corn again. Just corn and definitely not any sentient cursed scarecrows that come alive at the autumnal equinox to flay wanderers in their fields and wear their skin to grotesque demonic balls.”

Jaskier had been delighted when Geralt had accidentally let on once that he was somewhat able to discern people’s emotional states from their scents. Hoping to quickly tamp down on any ridiculous fantasies the bard might be imagining, he’d immediately tried to explain the intricacies of it, how it wasn’t as easy as smelling fear or joy or sadness, but the glazed look in Jaskier’s eyes had told him that he had stopped listening at ‘smell emotions,’ which wasn’t really what he could do. He could smell sweat, other bodily fluids and certain pheromones. Put that together with contextual clues and he could usually make a solid guess. Humans were all unique though, so joy on one person could be closer to excitement on another, anger could read similar to anxiety, sadness could smell like pain. The longer he knows someone though, the more past context he has to inform his observations and the better he gets at it. Jaskier has never smelled like this with him before.

“Damn Esme for that fucking story anyway. Besides, sentient cursed scarecrows don’t exist. Geralt said so.”

It is a distressed smell, he can tell that much. Maybe Jaskier is sick? He’s never really been around an ill Jaskier before. Cursed, hurt and hungover, yes, once all at the same time even, but not normal human sick. He creeps closer through the corn to try to get a visual read on the man. He’s not worried, just curious to place the new scent, that’s all.

“Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, Geralt never exactly said they didn’t exist. He just sort of ‘hmm-ed’ and told me not to worry about it. But maybe he only told me not to worry about it because he didn’t think I’d ever have occasion to traipse through a corn field near the autumnal equinox!”

Jaskier looks pale, but not necessarily ill. He’s very twitchy, clutching his lute tightly and flitting his gaze around wildly. His breath is shallow and fast and the flow of adrenaline through his system is unmistakable. Geralt cocks his head as he considers. Maybe he’s high on something? Fisstech? But who would take something like that and then go wandering through a field?

The wind picks up again, rustling the corn, and Jaskier moans. “Ooooh! I really wish it would stop doing that. Geralt! Are you out here? Please say yes!”

“Yes?” Intrigued enough by the puzzling scent to brave a conversation, he finally steps out from the stalks about two feet beside Jaskier to his left.

In response, Jaskier screams at a volume and frequency Geralt had previously thought only attainable by banshees and clutches at his heart. “Oh for the love of all the gods and every one of their bastard children! Don’t do that! You almost killed me!”

Ears ringing slightly, Geralt just raises a brow, unsure of how to respond to that. He feels that pointing out that if he wanted Jaskier dead he had ample opportunity while he was stalking him would not be helpful. Nor would reminding him that he had literally asked Geralt to respond. The distressed scent he had hoped to ascertain the meaning of had peaked when Jaskier screamed, but is now starting to fade quickly. Before it is completely gone, he brusquely asks, “What is wrong with you?”

“What is wrong with me?” Jaskier’s voice gets louder and higher. “What is wrong with you? You can’t just go,” he gestures exasperatedly at Geralt, “popping out beside people like that! You scared me half to death!”

“Scared?” No. That isn’t it. Geralt knows what Jaskier smells like when he’s afraid. It was practically the first scent of Jaskier’s he’d learned, when the elves had them tied up in Dol Blathanna, and he’s experienced it a hundred times since then: when Jaskier watches him fight monsters, when he sees him hopped up on potions and looking like the mutant he is, when he has to growl and bully his payment out of reluctant employers, when the night is dark and cold outside after they’ve been denied a room at the inn because of what he is… The list goes on and on. This isn’t what Jaskier smells like when he’s afraid.

Jaskier seems to take Geralt’s confused question as an insult however and blushes brightly. “Of course I was scared! Anyone would be really. Well, anyone with half an imagination. This dead field sends chills right down my spine, I tell you. There’s something terrifyingly poetic in a field that weeks ago was so full of life, now reduced to standing corpses raked by the merciless wind. And then once I started thinking about death and what could be hiding in the field I couldn’t really stop-”

“You don’t smell like you do when you’re scared.”

Jaskier raises a brow at that. “What exactly do I smell like when I’m scared?”

Geralt huffs in annoyance. He doesn’t really want to get into the details. Trying to describe the scent of something which someone can’t physically smell themselves is as frustrating as trying to describe infrared to someone who can’t physically see it. The words just don’t exist in any human language. So he goes for a concrete example instead. “Like when you see monsters.”

“Well I certainly wouldn’t smell like fear in that case. Why would I be scared? You’re there.” Jaskier says it lightly. Casually even. Like it isn’t upending Geralt’s entire understanding of their relationship up to and including this moment in time. The implications of the awful scent fading quickly from Jaskier after he appeared loom unavoidably large. And fear, he remembers, can smell a lot like worry. But that means… that means every time he thought Jaskier was afraid he was actually… that means Jaskier was never afraid with him not even when… He tries in vain to lock down the feelings those thoughts spawn. It can’t be true.

As if particularly to refute Geralt’s inner monologue, Jaskier clumsily blabbers on. “I mean, I am usually a tad concerned when you go bravely charging into battle, you have a nasty tendency to slash first and worry about yourself later, but I do know that you can take care of yourself and that you’d just find my fussing distracting so I would hardly say I was scared. It’s more like- oomph!” Jaskier is cut off by the hug he was not in any way expecting from the normally taciturn witcher. Which is fair. Geralt hadn’t even known he was going to hug him until his body had been moving almost reflexively in response, so it’s reasonable that Jaskier hadn’t seen it coming. Never one to be phased long though, Jaskier hums softly and hugs back. “This is new. And nice. You will tell me what I said that prompted this right? In case I want to incite it again?” When the embrace lasts probably longer than is socially acceptable, he tentatively pats Geralt’s back. “Are you sure you’re okay, witcher? Didn’t, perhaps, hit your head?”

He should say thank you. Thank you for not being scared of me. Thank you for coming out here to look for me even though you were scared. Thank you for being worried about me when everyone else thinks I’m a monster. All he actually manages is, “Sentient cursed scarecrows don’t exist.”

“How did you? Wha- ah! You! You!” Jaskier pushes him out of the hug so he can stare at him in indignant rage. “You were spying on me! You were watching me the whole time! Here I was, shaking in terror and you were just letting me stew in it you sick, sadistic-”

Moment over, Geralt rolls his eyes at Jaskier’s theatrics. “You weren’t in any danger.” He doesn’t have the courage to add ‘After all, I was there.’ Not yet. But he does manage to wrestle his doubts down enough to grab Jaskier’s hand as they run back to the inn together through the newly falling rain. Even urged along at an unreasonable pace in the awful weather, Jaskier just laughs and smells like flowers and anticipation and sweat and corn husks and not at all like fear.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr ([octinary.tumblr.com](https://octinary.tumblr.com/)) if you want to talk/ask me anything. :)


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